The invention relates to apparatus for manipulating hangers for garments or the like, and more particularly to improvements in apparatus for transporting hangers of the type having hooks for suspension of hangers on rails, bars, ramps, rods or like supports. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus which can be used with advantage to manipulate hangers which are delivered by conveyances, such as trolleys which are suspended from and can travel along overhead tracks, by chain conveyors or by other types of conveyors.
It is customary to suspend garments on hangers in a garment making plant, in a garment cleaning plant or in a shop which accepts garments for transport to a cleaning plant and where the garments are picked up by customers. As a rule, garment hangers are transported on chain conveyors, on rotary screw conveyors, by having their hooks slide along downwardly sloping ramps or on so-called trolleys having inverted U-shaped frames with upwardly extending legs which carry roller followers movable along an overhead track. The horizontal web between the upwardly extending legs of the trolley constitutes a support for the hooks of a series of neighboring garment hangers. When a trolley arrives at the unloading station, the hangers are removed by hand and are normally deposited on a downwardly sloping ramp so that the hooks of the manually transferred hangers can slide by gravity on their way to a further processing station or to storage. Manual transfer of hangers, especially of hangers which carry garments, is a time-consuming and tiresome task which is likely to constitute a bottleneck in the otherwise fully or partially automated production line.